Australian-German practice the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) has revealed plans for the Zhejiang Gate Towers, which will act as an entrance to the city of Hangzhou in China.

The form of the towers is an interpretation of the Chinese characters for the word “gate” or entrance to a city. Once complete, the towers will be the tallest structures in Hangzhou.

The buildings are part of a car-free, mixed-use development commissioned by Shimao in 2014. Three other structures make up the project: a 90-metre tower and two pavilions, which will house a combination of offices, residential and retail space.

The towers are the first to be built using LAVA’s extensive research into parametric facades. “We proposed long vertical fins as an alternative to a modular system. The towers are a further development of this geometric approach and we are excited to see the fruit of this research,” LAVA director Tobias Wallisser said.

“The towers combine fluid, curvaceous shapes with hard edges. The simple outer shape and the special articulation across both towers, the fluid lines, create different appearances from alternative perspectives.”

The Zhejiang Gate Towers have been designed to fulfill LEED Gold certification standard. The self-shading aluminum fins and high-performance glass reduce glare and solar heat gain. The towers were designed using eight super-columns, which enabled the structural system to be reduced by about 30 percent compared to a traditional structure.